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New Tariffs in the States

Bop said:
You REALLY need to vet your sources more carefully- I didn't even need to watch it to know immediately that was a video by a utuber named Sepentza- a notorious antiChina (and rabid anti EV) utuber with a long history of 'distorting the truth' aka lying... (he is a far rightwing supporter, born in South Africa, and has a VERY dubious past indeed)

Responsible for the 'ghost cities' nonsense, and also literally the starter of the 'fields of abandoned EVs left to rot' nonsense... (and the spread of the 'EVs catch fire' garbage against BYD- he seems to have a particular hatred of BYD for some reason)

BYD's blade batteries are indeed safe (and yes, Tesla does indeed use them in both the EU made Model 3, and also now the Chinese manufactured Model 3 as well)- BYD manufacture their own batteries, and have done since the first release of the E6, back in 2009... they manufacture more GWh of batteries per year than Tesla, and are one of the biggest manufacturers in the world...

They also outsell Tesla worldwide- and have been selling cars since 2009, and trucks and buses since 2012 (actual trucks- not US 'utes')- here in Australia BYD outsells Tesla (indeed my next car is going to be a Atto 3, later this year), NSW has been using their buses (nicknamed 'ElectricBlu) since 2016, and EV buses now make up almost a third of the inner city fleet in Sydney
2009 E6 was first released
View attachment 214848
2012, first BYD commercial vehicles went on sale
View attachment 214849
2016 Australia bought the first 6 BYD electric buses used in Australia (they bought another 40 in 2017, and by 2023, there were over 250 of them running around Sydney, with almost the entire diesel fleet being replaced by electric buses by 2028...)
View attachment 214850
View attachment 214851
In 2020, BYD released a shot of their 100th electric 'semi' sold in the US...
View attachment 214852

Like I said, I am looking at getting the Atto 3 later this year, a mid sized 'SUV', with a 450km range per charge (20% to 80% in under half an hour), has a 1200kg towing capacity, and is in Australia, $20000 cheaper for the LR version than the cheapest Tesla 3...
View attachment 214853
BYD do actually know what they are doing....
Click to expand...
The "Blade" prismatic cells are solid, but that's not the only type of cells BYD use. They are moving away from their pouch cells in their hybrids to "short blade" prismatics due to concerns about leakage.

From Jan:


"BYD unveiled in 2021 its self-developed hybrid technologies including a blade-shaped battery pack containing pouch cells which it said could achieve a higher charge and discharge efficiency specifically required by plug-in hybrid (PHEV) cars.

It uses such batteries in all of its PHEV models, which made up 48% of its total car sales of 3 million units in 2023 and are almost all sold in China. BYD does not source batteries externally, and the batteries it makes are mostly for its own use.
The automaker plans to replace the pouch batteries in its PHEVs with a type of prismatic battery known as "Short Blade", which is similar in structure to the Blade battery it uses in pure electric vehicles with stacked foils but is shorter in length, one of the sources said."
 
There are a couple of Genuine FUDster's on Youtube Ohh Lorrdie the krud they spew forth. Some are pretty darn slick, well funded by externals to push such messages too.
 
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Brucey said:
The "Blade" prismatic cells are solid, but that's not the only type of cells BYD use. They are moving away from their pouch cells in their hybrids to "short blade" prismatics due to concerns about leakage.

From Jan:


"BYD unveiled in 2021 its self-developed hybrid technologies including a blade-shaped battery pack containing pouch cells which it said could achieve a higher charge and discharge efficiency specifically required by plug-in hybrid (PHEV) cars.

It uses such batteries in all of its PHEV models, which made up 48% of its total car sales of 3 million units in 2023 and are almost all sold in China. BYD does not source batteries externally, and the batteries it makes are mostly for its own use.
The automaker plans to replace the pouch batteries in its PHEVs with a type of prismatic battery known as "Short Blade", which is similar in structure to the Blade battery it uses in pure electric vehicles with stacked foils but is shorter in length, one of the sources said."
Click to expand...
BYD doesn't currently sell ANY hybrid in Australia, or indeed anywhere else but China AFAIK, although that is about to change this year with them bringing out the 'ute' to Australia

The BYD Shark, the first BYD ute, is supposed to be on sale in early 2025, there are at least one and maybe two already in Australia that have been spotted doing test driving in either BEV or hybrid form
1715511728669.png
https://www.drive.com.au/news/2025-byd-shark-first-official-images/
At least it looks better than that stupid Tesla lol

It isn't the first electric ute in Australia, with LDV already having theirs available. but the BYD is a far better contender (the LDV in pure EV configuration is both quite expensive, and has a limited 330km range...)

1715512727957.png
https://www.drive.com.au/news/2023-ldv-et60-price-and-specs/
 
Bop said:
BYD doesn't currently sell ANY hybrid in Australia, or indeed anywhere else but China AFAIK, although that is about to change this year with them bringing out the 'ute' to Australia

The BYD Shark, the first BYD ute, is supposed to be on sale in early 2025, there are at least one and maybe two already in Australia that have been spotted doing test driving in either BEV or hybrid form
View attachment 214870
https://www.drive.com.au/news/2025-byd-shark-first-official-images/
At least it looks better than that stupid Tesla lol

It isn't the first electric ute in Australia, with LDV already having theirs available. but the BYD is a far better contender (the LDV in pure EV configuration is both quite expensive, and has a limited 330km range...)

View attachment 214874
https://www.drive.com.au/news/2023-ldv-et60-price-and-specs/
Click to expand...
Yes the article mentioned that I think 98% of their hybrids are sold domestically.

I think they'll watch the US based manufacturers fight it out into a race to the bottom price war before contemplating entering the market. No need to enter market now and become the punching bag for the domestics.
 
The industry will just move products to other locations for shipping. BYD is already discussing building in Mexico to avoid US tariffs.

What happened to the good old US of A and free markets ….. Let companies fail if they can’t compete, it’s really that simple. I’m all for letting BYD sell cars in the US, if it puts Elon out of business tuff sh…t.
 
upnorthandpersonal said:
Seems like there will be new tariffs on solar panels and batteries (and EVs, semiconductors and medical supplies) from China coming to the States.


electrek.co

Biden rumored to announce quadrupling of tariffs on Chinese EVs, up to 100%

Chinese cars are currently taxed by 25% in the US, and President Biden reportedly wants to quadruple that to a 100% tax.
electrek.co electrek.co
Click to expand...
I mentioned tariffs here and again here. As I mentioned then, buy your needed items now if you are comfortable about the price. Waiting for a low in the market may not pan out.

I bought panels, cells and battery boxes for the shop system, have my mount but have not sourced the inverters yet as I was waiting on new models coming that would fit the application better.

Hedge your bets accordingly,
 
Haze said:
What happened to the good old US of A and free markets ….. Let companies fail if they can’t compete, it’s really that simple.
Click to expand...
There is no true "free market".

China subsidizes its companies dumping below cost to drive out competition.

Even in the USA, we provide incentives and other help to companies.

The real question is who pays for tariffs? The supplier or the consumer? It seems to be a tax by another name.

Ultimately, all protectionism schemes do fail.

I don't see 400 watt class panels going much under $100 each so we must be pretty close to the bottom in pricing right now. It is unlikely we will be talking about $50 panels next year, for example.

Mike C.
 
mciholas said:
There is no true "free market".

China subsidizes its companies dumping below cost to drive out competition.

Even in the USA, we provide incentives and other help to companies.

The real question is who pays for tariffs? The supplier or the consumer? It seems to be a tax by another name.

Ultimately, all protectionism schemes do fail.

I don't see 400 watt class panels going much under $100 each so we must be pretty close to the bottom in pricing right now. It is unlikely we will be talking about $50 panels next year, for example.

Mike C.
Click to expand...
The usd/yuan pair is relatively high considering the last 10 years fluctuations. All markets are expecting Powell to start lowering rates before 2025 and when that happens the usd will devalue. Buying now your stuff is probably a good bet, also considering that fiat money is in a debt spiral, putting it into productive assets (like energy producing technology for yourself) is always a good thing to do.
Tariffs going high is just another reason to to it.
 
mciholas said:
There is no true "free market".

China subsidizes its companies dumping below cost to drive out competition.

Even in the USA, we provide incentives and other help to companies.

The real question is who pays for tariffs? The supplier or the consumer? It seems to be a tax by another name.

Ultimately, all protectionism schemes do fail.

I don't see 400 watt class panels going much under $100 each so we must be pretty close to the bottom in pricing right now. It is unlikely we will be talking about $50 panels next year, for example.

Mike C.
Click to expand...
Exactly, and our government has heavily subsidized Tesla. There would be no Tesla without California subsidies and Federal subsidies. I honestly see no difference between them and the car makers from China, let the market decide who survives and who dies.

Our government loves to give handouts and subsidize industries, just look at housing. We have house price appreciation from the government buying up MBS and driving real rates negative during COVID. I say dump all that MBS and let the housing market figure it out. Problem is house prices would tank.

All of these tariffs push rate cuts out further and further and could easily lead to raising rates latter this year. The good ole days of China exporting deflation is over. Tariffs put an end to that gimmick.
 
I am a fan of solar, batteries, etc, but we never should have set up the system to subsidize products coming in from the far east.

Part of the reason for justifying the massive tax breaks and subsidies was that it would provide a lot of production jobs and companies could grow from it. But reality is that very few solar panels, batteries and related equipment has been able to be produced in the US vs mostly imported.

So in effect, we have mostly been subsidizing China to take our green energy investments.

The tariffs mostly will just off set the subsidies - of course making life a constant tax here and subsidize there, but it does help to off set the issue.
 
Aridom82 said:
The usd/yuan pair is relatively high considering the last 10 years fluctuations. All markets are expecting Powell to start lowering rates before 2025 and when that happens the usd will devalue. Buying now your stuff is probably a good bet, also considering that fiat money is in a debt spiral, putting it into productive assets (like energy producing technology for yourself) is always a good thing to do.
Tariffs going high is just another reason to to it.
Click to expand...
Part of the reason I decided to install solar was the declining value of the dollar combined with increasing utility rates.

It is all playing out as I thought it would. The average Joe will feel the pinch quite heavily in the future. I ran the numbers on the utility rate increases for my local utility for this year and next and it comes to 26% when you compound the increase over 2 years.

Imagine an area where the rate/Kwh is $0.50 with a 26% increase. It will be $0.63/Kwh. Just crazy if monthly usage is like mine of over 800 Kwh per month. I can't imagine using twice that amount as some do on this site as they run an all electric home.
 
That doesn't take much imagination in my case.
Just wistful memories of slightly better times.
 
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mciholas said:
The real question is who pays for tariffs? The supplier or the consumer? It seems to be a tax by another name.
Click to expand...
At the end of the day it’s the consumer. While the supplier might cut their margin to balance the old supply/demand curve, they are not going to take a permanent loss.
 
I guess I got lucky reading the forum this morning. I'm purchasing an addition 64 EVE 280's since the price dropped from $150 Feb 2023 to $90. Rolling the dice and buying Canadian Solar 640/655's since I've spent $15,000 on Silfab's over the past few years. I'm barely scraping by on my off grid house (running AC 24/7) here in Cabo San Lucas, MX but nothing but overpriced used garbage being sold here. THANK YOU FORUM...saving me $$$
 
Haze said:
Exactly, and our government has heavily subsidized Tesla. There would be no Tesla without California subsidies and Federal subsidies. I honestly see no difference between them and the car makers from China, let the market decide who survives and who dies.

Our government loves to give handouts and subsidize industries, just look at housing. We have house price appreciation from the government buying up MBS and driving real rates negative during COVID. I say dump all that MBS and let the housing market figure it out. Problem is house prices would tank.

All of these tariffs push rate cuts out further and further and could easily lead to raising rates latter this year. The good ole days of China exporting deflation is over. Tariffs put an end to that gimmick.
Click to expand...
Meh, most states give tax breaks to get companies to invest in local manufacturing/jobs. Not unusual for any company creating local jobs to get local and state tax breaks and not on par with China subsidizing their companies to keep their prices artificially low. US consumers benefit from cheap Chinese imports, but the politicians want to show more local jobs.

I’m not sure what other subsidies you’re referring to for Tesla. (They did receive a DoE loan like most auto companies around 2008, and only them and Nissan paid it back… Ford hasn’t repaid yet and most of GMs was considered a “bailout” and will never be repaid)
 
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RobbyK said:
Meh, most states give tax breaks to get companies to invest in local manufacturing/jobs. Not unusual for any company creating local jobs to get local and state tax breaks and not on par with China subsidizing their companies to keep their prices artificially low. US consumers benefit from cheap Chinese imports, but the politicians want to show more local jobs.

I’m not sure what other subsidies you’re referring to for Tesla. (They did receive a DoE loan like most auto companies around 2008, and only them and Nissan paid it back… Ford hasn’t repaid yet and most of GMs was considered a “bailout” and will never be repaid)
Click to expand...
Simple goggle search my friend.
 
does anyone have a more up-to-date chart of US solar imports? It looks like most solar is coming from Malaysia and Vietnam. Might just be China circumventing existing tariffs though. I’m sure most inverters and batteries are coming from China. US solar panel imports
IMG_4767.jpeg
 
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RobbyK said:
does anyone have a more up-to-date chart of US solar imports? It looks like most solar is coming from Malaysia and Vietnam. Might just be China circumventing existing tariffs though. I’m sure most inverters and batteries are coming from China. US solar panel imports
View attachment 214927
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Yes, a lot of solar panels are coming from other countries even though it is a Chinese company.
 
RobbyK said:
does anyone have a more up-to-date chart of US solar imports? It looks like most solar is coming from Malaysia and Vietnam. Might just be China circumventing existing tariffs though. I’m sure most inverters and batteries are coming from China. US solar panel imports
View attachment 214927
Click to expand...
I thought it was shipping containers stopping by various pacific islands, resticker, then continue on their way.
 
RobbyK said:
does anyone have a more up-to-date chart of US solar imports? It looks like most solar is coming from Malaysia and Vietnam. Might just be China circumventing existing tariffs though. I’m sure most inverters and batteries are coming from China. US solar panel imports
View attachment 214927
Click to expand...

There are a lot more components involved in a solar install than just the panels. Just the safety systems are now approaching a similar cost to the panels, and nearly all of that is imported.
 
HarryN said:
There are a lot more components involved in a solar install than just the panels. Just the safety systems are now approaching a similar cost to the panels, and nearly all of that is imported.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that’s why I mentioned most inverters and batteries (etc) are coming from China. However, I’m thinking China might try something similar to the above solar panels to circumvent the tariffs.
 
Wall Street Journal:
/*
Beyond raising tariffs on electric vehicles, the White House announced on Tuesday that Biden is increasing a key tariff rate on steel and aluminum products to 25% from 7.5%, while the tariff on solar cells will rise to 50% from 25% and a new duty on shipping cranes will be 25%. Those tariff increases, among others, will kick in this year, while others, including a tariff increase to 25% from 7.5% for larger storage batteries and a new tariff on natural graphite set at 25%, will take effect in 2026.
*/
 
Warning - bit of a rant here.

So... We (our country) wants to encourage more energy from sources other than fossil fuels. To do that, we need things that produce that energy (solar cells) and a way to store that energy (larger storage batteries). So what do we do? Make them more expensive! What the....??

In other words, we dump the cost of moving to energy sources other than fossil fuels directly onto the people trying to make this change, in the form of higher prices. And then we wonder why we still have so much fossil fuel use, and greenhouse gas emissions, and all the problems that go with that. Good night, just DO what China does, and subsidize the heck out of the industries making these new technologies, if that's what it takes to keep costs down. That would encourage the shift to cleaner energy, and force the cost of that shift onto people still using the old energy sources. Instead, those of us trying to make the shift to cleaner energy will pay an artificially high price because of tariffs. And what will be done with that tariff money? Who the heck knows, but I bet it won't be spent efficiently on shifting to cleaner, renewable energy. And btw, I don't care which party is in power when it comes to this topic - I just don't want to be penalized for trying to do the right thing for the planet, and my family.

If you're mad at China, do things that cause pain to China (like removing the advantages of their subsidies). But how about doing that WITHOUT making US consumers trying to do the right thing bear the entire cost of that punitive action! We could both encourage US production AND encourage the shift to cleaner energy, by subsidizing OUR production. Instead, we choose to harm our own citizens by making it more expensive for them to adopt cleaner energy. That's just stupid.
 
Everyone should consider "Where do those Duties & Fees" actually end up (Regardless of what country your in). None of it ends up back in YOUR POCKET after you paid it ! It does not go back into the Industry-Sector that it came from (IE Batteries or Car Parts or Furniture etc) on the "Domestic Side" as a subsidy or anything...

Manufacturers, Vendors, Shippers DO NOT PAY ANY OF IT ! It is YOU & YOUR Pocketbook that Pays this "TAX" that ends up in the Black Hole of Government Accounts.

NEWS IS SPEWING Theory, Conjecture, Postulations RIGHT NOW (07:42 EST) but Whitehouse will release details (IE FACTS) later today and then we shall see what is real & not real.
 
Steve_S said:
Everyone should consider "Where do those Duties & Fees" actually end up (Regardless of what country your in). None of it ends up back in YOUR POCKET after you paid it ! It does not go back into the Industry-Sector that it came from (IE Batteries or Car Parts or Furniture etc) on the "Domestic Side" as a subsidy or anything...

Manufacturers, Vendors, Shippers DO NOT PAY ANY OF IT ! It is YOU & YOUR Pocketbook that Pays this "TAX" that ends up in the Black Hole of Government Accounts.

NEWS IS SPEWING Theory, Conjecture, Postulations RIGHT NOW (07:42 EST) but Whitehouse will release details (IE FACTS) later today and then we shall see what is real & not real.
Click to expand...
How are the duties/tariffs in Canada?

I mean you guys have been energy independent for how many decades, how’s that working out for you guys?
 
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